


The Last Beach

by svefn



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Grieving, Guilt, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svefn/pseuds/svefn
Summary: When he closes his eyes, he still sees the man in the dark. The fluorescent light glints off the handgun’s muzzle as his hand shakes.
Relationships: Die-Hardman/Clifford Unger
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71





	The Last Beach

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, hey,  
> Without you there’s holes in my soul  
> Hey, hey,  
> Let the water in
> 
> Don’t Forget About Me—Cloves

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the man in the dark.

The fluorescent light glints off the handgun’s muzzle as his hand shakes. The man sits leaning against the bed, furnished with now-meaningless life support, barely breathing. The baby is limp in his arms. The smell of blood, the smell—it is too unfamiliar, he realizes belatedly, without the acrid smoke, sharp sparks of gunfire, the booming of far-off bombs. The war always blinded, deafened him. He’s never smelled blood just like this—pure iron stench in the sterile air.

It makes his stomach lurch.

“Shoot him, John,” she cries. “ _Shoot him!_ ”

The gun goes off—and he feels a white-hot pain in his chest as he wakes in his private room, drenched with sweat.

* * *

But the day breaks, and he forgets.

“There is work to be done,” he speaks, carefully controlling the tone of his voice to sound calm, confident, professional. A leader he was not supposed to be. “Until America is whole again, we cannot rest.”

“It is the President’s legacy.” He wonders when he lost the bitter edge to the words.

If there ever was a bitterness. He stares as Sam’s image turns away from the terminal, then runs a hand down his face. As if the masked face is not his own, as if he is lovingly caressing someone else—her. Because it was— _is_ , still—love. Because he, caught in the grasps of an unrelenting oath, believes in her. Believes that this is the right thing, as right as one can be in all this goddamned chaos—

Then the night falls, and he can never forget. Another trigger pulled in the nightmare, another bullet lodged in his heart. Another dull ache to ignore as he wakes, yet again, to speak for the great dream of Bridget Strand, the last President of America.

* * *

“Why are you doing this?” the man asked.

“Because you saved my life, sir.” Because I’ve seen how the lines of your face soften as you quietly sing to your child. Because I cannot bear to have this happen to you, not by my own hands. Because I cannot look at you in the eye, even as I say this is your final chance. _Because I—_

There is her sharp cry, the gunshot, and he wakes.

Each tear counts the leaden weight of his heart. He knows they won’t be seen under the mask.

* * *

“Because all I ever did,” he records into the message, “is run from death.”

_That is not all true_ , he thinks to himself. _I ran from death, but he was the one to pull me out, to finally save me_. This may well be the last message he’ll leave to Bridges, and he is still wearing this mask, he cannot even say the man’s name—will he able to say it, when he has ended what she started?

He turns the record off and prepares himself. The loaded gun in his right hand, the scarred doll in his left. He closes his eyes, sees the man—briefly, his back turned to him—and grips the gun tighter. In a second, everything pulls away into the darkness.

He hears the rush of waves.

* * *

_Because you saved my life, sir._ He hears himself say, yet again. It cracks his heart now—one that hasn’t cracked, even with all those holes borne through the decades.

He stares up at the hospital ward ceiling. He had everyone leave as soon as he regained consciousness. The sterile quiet fills the room now. If Deadman saw the wetness of his cheeks, he didn’t comment on it. And why should he? Perhaps he thinks he’s grieving for Bridget. Or Amelie.

He turns his head slightly to see his— _her_ —mask.

As the man removed it from his face, he knelt, staring into those shut-off eyes. The figure trailed smoke, floating ember at the edges, as if he returned not from the deep, dark waters but from the very flames of hell—so many hell that was each battlefield, hell that they once tore through together.

“Is that really you?” he asked.

And he wished, he pleaded—that he’d kill him. Why shouldn’t he?

Why _didn’t_ he?

* * *

He repeats the question as he kneels in front of Sam.

Sam pulls him up, then shoves the handgun back into his chest. The embodiment of everything he’s done. The rope that connects him, Bridget, Sam and—him. A strand of sin.

“That gun won’t help you here,” Sam says. “That’s her words, not mine.”

He thanks him, not quite sure what it means.

* * *

He knows what Deadman told Sam. That is, he can guess—he’s not blind.

He tries not to let it show when Sam drops off the network. Sam knows how to take care of himself, and he has a country to look after.

What is another crack in an already tattered heart?

Lockne—Lockne and Mama—seems to have simply accepted it. He guesses that the sisters have talked it out among themselves. Heartman hasn’t said much to him. No wonder, he’s probably still not trusted. Fragile has been working too hard lately. He makes a mental note to check her orders, slacken them a little. She may not be that fragile—but it doesn’t mean she should be goddamn invincible.

He looks out towards the Capital Knot City, glistening with rain. He slowly reaches inside his jacket and gently touches the handgun with his fingertips. Tucked in front of his heart, heavy with not quite forgiven sins.

“If you let me live to make things right,” he murmurs, “why do I feel that I have failed you, yet again?”

* * *

Years pass. When he closes his eyes, he now sees the man in the light. Walking out from the water, trailing embers, eyes so distant.

The tears flow freely without the mask.

With a heart full of holes that wouldn’t die just yet, he tries to do what is best. Not what _she_ thought best, not anymore. He tries to listen—to Deadman, to Heartman, to Mama and Lockne, to Fragile. To everyone who is here in the UCA, connected.

And when he is alone, he’d reach into his jacket and touch the handgun. _If you’re not scared of death, how can you value life?_ Sam’s firm voice rings. So he holds the gun, the connecting guilt, to make sure he never forgets.

* * *

When he closes his eyes, he sees the man in the light. It has been so long since he last heard the rush of these waves.

He opens his eyes to find himself lying sideways, staring into black sand. The hills, then the mountains, stretch so far, far away. He feels the shallow cold, the salt in the air.

His second time at the beach. His last.

_At least my joints don’t hurt in the afterlife_ , he thinks ruefully as he stands up. He notices that he’s in the black suit again. He wonders if this—the strangely old-fashioned outfit for his inauguration, many years past—means he’s done not too terribly during his presidency. That he managed at least a few things right.

He pats the inside of his jacket for the handgun, an old habit now. As his fingertips find the metal surface, he sees him, walking out of the water.

* * *

The man walks slowly, pushed and pulled by the waves, until they are standing face to face on the beach. John stares, unable to move. He looks the same as that final day—his long coat billowing in the wind, the dark suit clean of blood.

“John,” Cliff says, his voice raspy, unused.

“I loved you,” John whispers, voice breaking in the waves. “God, I—I love you.”

Cliff reaches out, lays his palm flat against the front of John’s jacket.

John shudders as the gun seems to press into his heart. But Cliff’s eyes—he has seen it, every night in his dreams, staring him down in the dark or on this beach—they are different. They crinkle at the edges. John would like to even think they were smiling, if it weren’t too much to wish for, even here.

“Why do you think Sam gave you this?” Cliff asks. His voice is low, warm, like when he pulled John from the throes of gunfire and flames, the first time of many.

John means to say yes, and no, and both, but all that comes out is a barely suppressed sob. “Captain,” he chokes out, “Clifford— _Cliff_.” The pale sky feels too much like those fluorescent lights, and he cannot speak.

Cliff is patient. He slowly lifts his hand from John’s chest, cups his face and runs a careful thumb across the cheekbone. Where he dries a tear, soon flows another.

“You’re not wearing the mask anymore,” Cliff says quietly. Like an answer to all of John’s unspoken apologies. All he can do is nod shakily, once.

Cliff’s hand slides down behind his neck, then he is pulled forward. Slightly leaning, their foreheads touch. John blindly grips Cliff’s forearm—and the body, the warmth underneath his hand, breaks the last of his tattered, bullet-ridden heart.

“It is time to go,” Cliff whispers. John closes his eyes, wetness hanging from the lashes, and holds on tighter.

_Don’t let me go_ , he thinks. _Not alone. Please_.

When Cliff smiles—then that little rush of breath, not quite a laugh, soundless but there—John feels himself finally melt into the touch. He can feel the warm waves rushing higher.

It is time to go. Together.


End file.
